Now that we have hired a ridiculous amount of folks at work, hours have slimmed down a bit. I’m very okay with this, as it gives me time to actually sit back and enjoy the summer… Something I didn’t get to do at all last year thanks to summer school. I requested two days off this week– the fourth and the fifth– so I could enjoy a proper Independence Day, but it looks like I get to have the first through the third off, too! Five day weekend? Hell yes!

Lately I’ve been going on bike rides like mad! I never rode much in the two years we’ve lived here ’cause it’s so easy to get around on foot– unless you’re going to a neighboring city, there’s no real reason to ride a bike or drive a car. Unless, of course, that reason is the Bottoms!

“The Bottoms” refer to the rural part of Arcata between the city and the beach. It is the best reason to hop on a bike in the late afternoon, just when the sun starts to make its descent towards the horizon. The road is pretty rugged and not really made for skinny tires, but it zig zags between vast amounts of farm land. And where there’s farm land, there’s cows!

Oh, how I love cows. They are such gorgeous beings, though some of these looked a bit sad with warts or tumors on/around their faces. Poor guys… Er, gals! A few days previous to this particular ride I had gone on the same route with Chris and two of our future room mates, Kristina and Katie. We stopped a few times for photo shoots with the cows and they were not having it! This day, though, they couldn’t get enough! They kept following Chris and I up and down the fence, hamming it up for the camera. Too precious.

I also finally got to take photos of this spooky, seemingly abandoned house that I frequently pass by. I have no idea if anyone occupies it, but the prayer flags above the porch are really intriguing to me. Usually abandoned homes are so nondescript aside from their decrepitude. Maybe someone does live there? I’m too chicken to knock on the door!

If you keep riding past the scary house for a few more miles, Mad River Road will eventually take you to the beach. From my house, it’s just shy of an extremely satisfying 15 mile round trip– one that is littered with these fantastic signs warning you about entering/leaving the Tsunami Hazard Zone. I know tsunamis are serious business, but these signs crack me up.

Between bike rides and work, I’ve been doing a ton of vegan baking! The other day I made lemon bars, which disappeared in a matter of seconds. And today I finally got my hands on some wheat germ (you’d think this hippy town would be overflowing with wheat germ!) so tomorrow I will be tackling oatmeal and date cookies. I may throw some coconut in there, too, ’cause that’s how I roll!

I also finished designing my new web page so I can start selling prints / dino dude earrings and generally existing under the guise of an artist, rather than my usual outfit of lazy-bones gamer girl who loves to cook and update her Flickr.

My only problem is my moniker… Or lack thereof. I’m having trouble coming up with a good domain to register. Suggestions would be helpful! Unfortunately, my name is so painfully boring that any sort of formation of it is already taken a hundred times over. There goes my easy way out! Drats.

In case you’re wondering, the exclamation point in the title was extremely necessary. This was the first time I made bean burgers and, despite a huge bump in the road, they turned out wonderful with the help of a little improvisation.

The recipe I was using, which I transcribed by hand from a cookbook at Meg’s house in Brooklyn!, called for four shallots. I piled all the ingredients into my food processor, with shallots on top, and started pulsing the mixture… But the shallots just stayed put. Eventually I took half the mixture out, processed it, and then the other half… But the shallots didn’t chop. Eventually I became ravenously hungry and depressed that my bean burgers looked more like a bean dip, so I picked out all the large pieces of shallot and left it at that.

To resolve the goopy over-processed problem I doubled the bread crumbs. The consistency of these patties is great, even though nothing like the recipe had intended. I overcooked each side to get a nice, flaky, charred-bean skin around it.

So! Here’s the recipe as I made it. I’m sure the original recipe is fantastic, but I’ll never know! I like this one too much, now.

Ingredients
1 can Kidney beans, drained
1 can Black beans, drained
1 can Cannellini beans, drained
8 oz. Breadcrumbs
1 heaping tsp Chili powder
2 stalks Celery, halved and chopped
1-2 Shallots, minced finely
Cilantro, to taste, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions
- In a food processor, combine all ingredients except for half the breadcrumbs. Blend until creamy. Place in a mixing bowl and refrigerate for 20 minutes, or until chilled.

- Add the rest of the bread crumbs and mix by hand. If you wish, you can reserve some of the beans from being creamed, and add them in now, too. Form into 4-8 patties, flatten between the palms of your hand, and store in the refrigerator inside an airtight container until ready for use.

- To cook: heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Pat flour onto each side of the burgers and fry for 5-6 minutes on each side, or until it becomes dark and crispy.

- Serve on a toasted bun with all your favorite fix’ns! These burgers are vegan, but I couldn’t resist a sprinkling of feta on mine! :x I also enjoy eggless canola mayonnaise, mustard, avocado, cilantro, black pepper and an unnatural amount of fresh lime juice.

Blueberry Bonanza Bars have been at the top of my to-bake list ever since I bought the Cookie cookbook. When I worked as a barista I made a much more crude version of them for the dessert shelves and, despite the crust coming from a box, they were absolutely delicious. I don’t really care for blueberries, though, so while at the grocery store I decided to buy some raspberry jam– my absolute fave.

But, while standing in the middle of the aisle, debating what brand to buy, I remembered that I have a monster sized jar of mango preserves in my refrigerator. Like, 48 oz. huge. I couldn’t justify buying yet more jam when I’ve barely put a dent in what I already had, so with my head hung low I dragged my feet to the registers.

I’m such a stubborn brat that I almost made something entirely different when I got home, simply because I couldn’t have exactly what I wanted. It’s a good thing I saw things through, though, because these bars turned out wonderful! They have a subtle but sweet flavor, and they were very easy to make despite the baking time.

The recipe for the bars is right here, which I followed pretty closely. The only substitutions I used were 2 servings of Ener-G Egg Replacer, 1 1/2 sticks of Earth Balance, and 1 1/2+ cups of mango preserves.

Here is the recipe for Almond-Coconut Granola, with vegan substitutions:

Ingredients
4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) Earth Balance
1/4 cup Agave nectar
1/2 cup packed Brown sugar
2 Tbsp Water
3 cups Rolled oats
2/3+ cups Sliced almonds
1/2+ cup Shredded coconut, sweetened

Directions
- In a small sauce pan, melt butter and agave nectar over medium-low heat, stirring frequently. Add brown sugar and keep stirring until it dissolves. Add water, stir and remove from heat. In a medium sized bowl, combine the oats, almonds and coconut. Pour sugar sauce over the mixture and stir until evenly coated.

- This granola is pretty scrumptious to keep hanging around by itself, so if you want to make it without the granola bars, simply bake it at 375 F on a rimmed baking sheet for about 25-30 minutes, or until the oats begin to turn golden. Store in an airtight container and nibble as needed :)

Coming home from a weekend of guiltless face stuffing it was kind of hard for me to even think about food, let alone the thought of preparing it myself. It’s incredible how much crap I managed to put in my body during those few days– we are definitely due up for a vegan-detox. Uhm… Nevermind the donut holes and apple strudel we had for dessert last night! :x

I decided to crack open ol’ faithful (which is apparently available on Google Books!) and try something I hadn’t done before… Preferrably something easy. The original recipe for Booker T’s Southwest Tempeh Chili doesn’t look incredibly difficult, but I veered so far away from the recipe that I can’t really comment on it. I mostly used its flavors and spices as my base because– awful vegetarian confession here– I’m not too hot for tempeh. When it’s good it is so good, but when it isn’t good it’s just money down the hole. So I decided to replace and add ingredients fit to our tastes. The results were fabulous and it was as easy as opening cans and dumping them into the soup pot!

Ingredients
4 cups Vegetable broth
1 cup Yellow onion, chopped
1-2 stalks Celery, halved and chopped
1 Jalapeno, seeded and minced
2 Sweet Potatoes, peeled and chopped into bite-size pieces
1 can Stewed tomatoes, diced
1-2 cans Refried beans
1 can Black beans, drained
1 can Corn, drained
2 Tbsp Tomato paste
3 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp Lime juice
1 Tbsp Chili powder
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Garlic powder
1/4 cup Cilantro, chopped

2 medium Russet potatoes
6 oz. Plain soy yogurt
Lime juice

Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 F. Rinse Russet potatoes, stab with a knife and wrap in aluminum foil. Place in the center rack of the oven and bake until fluffy.

- While potatoes are baking, bring vegetable stock to a slow boil in a large pot. Add onion, celery, jalapeno and sweet potatoes. Cook for 20-30 minutes, or until potatoes are soft.

- Add stewed tomatoes and tomato paste and let cook for 5 minutes. Depending on how thick or thin you prefer your chili, add 1 or 2 cans of refried beans. I only added one in anticipation of the chili losing water in the refrigerator overnight. Stir occasionally, making sure the refried beans fully dissolve in the broth.

- Next, add soy sauce, lime juice, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder and cilantro. You may use fresh garlic if you’d like. I didn’t have any on hand, so I used a can of stewed tomatoes that had garlic in it. Quick fix! After stirring those ingredients into the pot, you may now add the black beans and corn.

- Let sit on the stove top without a lid over medium heat until baked potatoes are finished cooking. Meanwhile, in a small bowl prepare sour creme by combining soy yogurt with lime juice and cilantro to taste.

- Once everything’s finished cooking, serve chili on top of baked potatoes, with a dollop of sour creme. I confess to adding a few pads of butter and some salt to my potato fluff prior to dousing it with chili, then stirring it all together into one gnarly looking (but delicious tasting!) mess.

Enjoy! :)

Last night I arrived back in Arcata after the longest (and best!) weekend of my life. We went on a huge family trip to Disneyland for one day, and I’m shocked to report that we managed to ride all the rides– well, the important ones, anyway– even with park hopper tickets in hand! After everyone had their fills we had a grand total of 14 hours of fun… And 500+ photos for me to sort through and edit!

I have no clue how I’m going to manage getting these done in a reasonable amount of time. What’s even worse is that Amanda sent me a link to these adorable amigurumi made by Flickr user artoo1121. There’s everything from Lord of the Rings, to Futurama, to Firefly– and of course Star Wars! Some of the costumes are extremely well crafted, and I just can’t take my eyes off this Zoidberg!

They have an Etsy shop as well as a blog. I can’t tell you how tempted I am to put in some custom orders, but ever since my mother took up crocheting the last thing I need is even more amigurumi.

Who am I trying to kid? You can never have too much amigurumi! :D